Gunmetal Grey Christmas
by Anna B. Gins
Summary: Dethklok is charged with the responsibility of spreading peace and goodwill or they can't have any presents. Join us for this touching tale of love, friendship, and pan-fluting. Blood. Gore. Language. Etc.


"Christmas is brutal," Murderface assured the brain trust, smacking his palms down on top of the spotless oak finish of the meeting table. This was what he was trying to introduce as his sort of gavel gesture, a hand motion to assure the rest of his bandmates-at-arms that he was finished with this conversation and they were to proceed directly to the next topic in need of his attention.

Unfortunately, it was still in its first legs of planning because it was ignored entirely. Murderface turned a frustrated red and stared down his insolent company, but they continued on regardless of his sour stares.

"Christmas is not brutal, I'm sorry, but it's not," Nathan argued, slipping a bothersome strand of hair behind his ear. "It's all about peace on earth and fucking pudding or something." He swept the hair out of his face again. "And giving gifts and-- goddamnit," he raged, grasping his hair in his fists with every intention of uprooting it.

"Put it down, Nathan. Again, let me remind you that this is all purely tangential," Charles said, swiping his glasses off of his nose and polishing them to a diamond finish on his coat lapel. "The topic was a benefit for mauled and disabled children. It would be good PR for you guys, maybe help everyone to forget that last Christmas, you steered an asteroid into Canada."

"There are still some left," Murderface attempted to soothe him, oblivious to the fact that he had used this argument a few times before. His memory just did not work like that. "They're like cockroaches. When the world ends, there will just be Twinkies and Canadians."

"While that is . . . horribly offensive," Charles interrupted him swiftly, replacing the glasses and squinting at the five, "what do you think? Yes? No?"

"I don'ts know," said Skwisgaar, obviously unimpressed by the way that he leaned back in his seat and twitched his lips disapprovingly. "Crippled kids, that's is some serious buzzkills."

"Yeah," Nathan agreed. "I mean, we'll be getting a lot of gift baskets and shit soon. What if they ask to share it with us?"

"Well, they're crippled," Pickles reasoned. "It's not like you can't just tell them no. Who are they going to cry to?" His shoulders shook with laughter. "I mean, they can't walk."

"Again," Charles blurted. "I hope that you don't talk like this around the kids."

"Ands who says we're goings?" Skwisgaar snapped, narrowing his eyes angrily.

"I am," Charles said, straightening his suit as he stood. He paused to flick his cuffs and muster a small, fleeting smile. "None of you are getting any gifts until you spread peace and joy to the world. Well. I'll be in my office."

It was silent until the door slammed behind him, and then the table was loud with fervent whispering. Pickles grabbed at Nathan's shoulder, Toki buried his face in his palms and sobbed, and Murderface and Skwisgaar leaned over the table to wave their hands and exchange frantic screams with one another.

"We haves to stop fighting, guys!" Toki whined, barely visible from where he peeked out from behind his chair. "We're runnings out of times!"

"Fuck," Nathan raged. Because he had the loudest voice, everyone listened to him. "Toki's right. Okay, guys, we have to figure out what to do. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to pass up on all that free shit. I mean, we're, like, in a recession. That would be just stupid."

"It's would," Skwisgaar agreed.

Nathan laughed. "It would."

Pickles nodded. "Definitely."

"But we'res horribles at spreadings the peace and good wills!" Toki moaned.

"No. No we are not. Guys, what did—guys." Nathan rubbed at his temples, the usual impending migraine hanging around at the cause of deep thought. "I had an idea."

"Oh, we'll just do everything you say," Murderface snapped. "Don't even ask for anyone else's good ideas."

"Okay, we'll address that later. But guys." Nathan leaned in. Skwisgaar leaned back, his lip curling. Toki squealed.

"Whats?!"

"What's the number one thing that people are always complaining about?" Nathan asked. A flurry of muttered guesses and screeched replies followed, so much that Nathan had to wave his hand to clear the horrible noise. "No, no! Goddamnit, no. It's poor people."

"Oh's my gods." Skwisgar rubbed at his chin. "It's trues."

"It is!" Toki chirped.

"I know I'm sick about hearing about all these poor people," Pickles muttered. "They're always talking about healthcare and houses and being homeless. It's like, why don't they just get a job, you know?"

"Okay, Pickles," Nathan said, massaging the bridge of his nose. "I don't mean to cut you off, but that's just stupid. That's how poor people are. It's in their genetic build up or whatever."

"It's like they just exist to bring the rest of us down," Murderface whispered. "My god. I think I've got it."

"Tells us!" Toki cried.

Every shadow of the room took up residence on Murderface's face. Black drowned out the ridge of his brows, the jut of his chin, and flooded the gaping pores of his flesh. All that was left was a pair of glittering eyes, so wrought with brilliance that the rest of the group could hardly stand to look at him. "We kill the poor people."

"That's a terrible idea," Nathan said.

"Just--" Murderface gave a long and suffering sigh, his tubby belly heaving and wobbling against the table. "Just hear me out on this. I'm about to teach you a little something about what I like to call . . . economy."

"Yays!" Toki squealed, but quieted soon after everyone turned to glare daggers at him. Interrupting a life-altering lesson such as this one was frowned upon at the table. It was just a basic rule of Metalquette. "Sorries."

"Poor people . . . have no money," Murderface explained, gesturing broadly to orchestrate his bandmate's attention. It was working so far, all of them silent and staring with as much intelligent consideration as a cow watching a zeppelin pass by. "That means they aren't worth . . . anything."

"Oh's my gods," Skwisgaar shouted in disbelief. "They'res ruinings the worlds!" At Murderface's sage nod, he leapt to his feet and slammed his fist against the table. His homicidal-faced comrade was about to raise a point of contention over his flagrant violation of copyright, but by then, Skwisgaar was already on a roll. "Guys, we haves to kill the homeless."

"We haves to!" Toki spoke up, trying to drive the point home.

"Toki, we's already knows that."

Nathan stood as well. "Look," he said. "This seems like a really good idea to me."

"And I want those baskets, yanno'!" Pickles stood and offered a hand to the center of the table. One by one, the rest of Dethklok put theirs in as well, and the plan was binding.

---

There were a few problems with the plan, it turned out. The correct tools had been issued in order to get the job done, a date was picked, and everything was ready to go. It was unfortunate that a few unforeseen kinks had come up, but the group was working to iron those out on the fly.

"I can't even, like, see where I'm going, yanno'?" Pickles said. He had his coat sleeve jacked up over his palm and he was furiously swiping at the windshield of his steam roller, but the caked on blood would not come loose. "I knew I should'a put that rain repellent on it before we came out here."

Toki fingered a wooden flute. In the distance, a murder of crows squawed, and he closed his eyes to feel the wind on his face. When it picked the right direction to softly blow, he lifted his fingers and the flute screamed shrilly, the birds painting the sky with rivers of oily, screaming blackness. It was not long before they swooped down on the crowd, already panicked and moving as a collective whole in what would be an unfortunate attempt at evacuating the city. They fed on the trampled, the disabled, the slow, and the weak, tearing their eyes from their still-screaming faces and grabbing them, one crow to each foot, to rend them in half mid-air.

"Pickles ," Murderface sighed. "That wouldn't work with blood."

"What? Watery stuff is watery stuff, yanno'?"

The townspeople turned against their feathered predators, driving them back with lit torches and sharp pitchforks. The birds screamed and Toki's fingers danced over the flute, invoking a sharp trill of melodious notes.

"Pickles ," Murderface sighed again, bowing his head in embarrassment for just how much his bandmate did not know. "Blood's sort of my thing, see? Sooo . . ."

"Whoa, whoa. When did we decide that blood was your thing?"

"There's no need for a decision!" Murderface snapped. "That's just the fucking way it is!"

"Godddd," Pickles moaned. "You don't have to get all, yanno', pissy with me just because you didn't get the vote."

Temporarily deterred, the birds swarmed over a school. The children had already been moved out, and they stood in an unfortunate line down the center of a grassy knoll. As the birds passed, there was the sickening sound of flesh tearing and guts ripping. What they left in their wake was only the putrid remains of parts unedible and unappetizing. The ground began to shake.

"I got the vote! I got the fucking vote!" Murderface screamed, spitting and bristling at Pickles nonchalant replies. He shuffled forward and clutched Pickles's collar in his stubby fingers, unable to resist a good two or three shakes. "And if anyone says otherwise--"

"Toki," Pickles cut him off. "Stop all that crappy flute-playing. We're trying to talk here."

A large crow beak opened up a great chasm in the earth. People went tumbling into the crevasse, clutching at the sides, powerless to escape the wrath of the hungry beak. When Toki rested the flute at his side, however, the beak disappeared.

"Sorries," Toki said.

"Look, I just don't think this is working out, yanno'?" Pickles sighed. "Back to start, I guess."

"Yyyyyyyeah." Murderface rubbed spittle from his chin and gestured for Toki to follow. "Let's go, assholes."

--

For a season that thrived on high spirits and happiness, Dethklok was looking particularly glum. Their next meeting was wealthy with sour faces and low, dispirited grumbles, none of which was helped by Charles chewing them out over what all of them had agreed was a well-intended act of charity that was not their fault for blundering.

"So," he said as kindly and patiently as possible. "I take it, ah, 'building things with guns and huge trucks' went well?" The group was silent, recognizing both their excuse and their failure. "No?"

"Surprises!" Toki spoke up. His angst was superficial; in truth, Toki felt that they accomplished what they set out to do and was only halfway dissuaded by his groupmates into thinking otherwise.

"I'm still not sure what you were doing," Charles said, "but everything that I ordered for you ended up, uh, taking a human life. Toki, hand the pan flute over."

"No!" Toki wailed.

"Toki."

"You's hates fun," Toki grumbled, handing over the flute.

"We just want you to know," Nathan said finally, "we did it for you. And the people, I guess. The rich people."

"Yes. Well," Charles replied, stammering in disbelief. "You . . . exterminated the rest of Canada. I'm sure that the housing developers will thank you for it. That is, of course, unless they've fallen into the fiery abyss that you raised through the center of Montreal."

"Freak accident." Murderface dismissed this with a wave of his hand and went back to brooding and slumping.

"Right. Well." Charles stood, signifying the fact that the meeting was over and that he was ready to leave. Dethklok was suddenly alive, each respective member trembling in anticipation and excitement. It was not an unusual sort of reaction, so he thought nothing of it. "Just . . . keep thinking on that children's benefit. Whatever. Bye."

The door hardly closed before ideas were being pitched back and forth across the table. There were angry postulations, seething objections, and feverish proclamations, and it was not long into it that the entire band was red-faced and panting.

"We have to make toys," Murderface yelled, but Skwisgaar was quick to cut him off.

"Your ideas is dildos!" he raged. "Yous gots us into this mess in the firsts place, remembers? Remembers?"

"You don't want to push my buttons right now," Murderface replied quietly, massaging his temples, his head ducked but the devilish intent still evident in his knitting brows. "You don't. Want. To push my buttons."

"What about a totally metal Christmas tree?" Nathan asked. "Like, I don't know, maybe we could hang some Canadians from it."

"There's are no more Canadians!" Skwisgaar snapped. "Pays attentions!"

"What's if we builts everyones a snow man?" Toki asked politely.

"Dildos," Skwisgaar spat.

"Too hard," Pickles protested.

"Twenty-two . . . twenty-one . . ." Murderface chanted.

"Uh." Nathan knitted his hands together. "Well, that's pretty retarded, Toki. Like, it's pretty fucking stupid. But I think you might be on to something. Look. Hey, look here." He dug through the pile of junk on his lap, discarding everything from candy wrappers to portable game consoles to cell phones. It was tough to decide what to bring to pass the time during a boring meeting. At the end of it, he produced a generously-sized snow globe, shaken already so that the snowflakes went whipping wildly around their spherical prison. "Alright, guys. What is this?"

"A littles round tvs?" asked Skiwsgaar.

"Homes in a ball!" Toki squealed.

"A snow globe," Pickles replied, bored. But it was Murderface that finally put two and two together.

"Christmas ," he said deviously, leaning into watch the snow sweep into the eyes of a helpless pedestrian with a book of carols in his hand.

"Yeah. That was it. Murderface was right," Nathan said.

"Another fine example of humanity expressing itself through art," Murderface whispered, misty-eyed and inspired into awe. He held a hand out for the globe, but Nathan refused to give it up. A few angry jerks and he still did not have possession of the item, so he settled back in his seat and tucked his hands beneath his armpits. "We have to make the whole world just like that."

"It's alreadys rounds," Skwisgaar sneered. "I's saws it when's we wents into space?"

"No ," Murderface hissed.

"We have to fill it with water?" Pickles asked.

"Sort of ," Murderface replied. He was back to gesturing grandly again. "We have to make it snow . . . all over."

"But you's cant's do that!" Toki cried. "Some's places cannots have snows!"

"Listen," Nathan growled, jabbing a finger at some unseen aggravator, "I'm not about to be trumped by some piece of shit earth, okay? We're going to bring joy to the fucking world. That's, like, that's just the way it has to be."

"I agree," Pickles stated. "Fuck the earth, yanno', let's make it snow!"

---

Darkness covered the earth. The sun was eclipsed by a massive fleet of spiked starships, their canons spreading like fans, eyeing the unsuspecting land below with robotic curiosity. Panicked screams were drowned out by the sound of helicopter blades and the roar of powerful engines. Unheard and helpless, the world finally went silent and still as they watched clouds of wire and steel roll lazily across the skyline, drooling black and putrid puffs of fog as they went.

"You gots the door?" Skwisgaar asked. Toki shot him a thumbs up and planted his shoulder against the offending exit and, as if in reply, the door clattered and rocked on its hinges.

"All right," Pickles said, adjusting his black snowcannon goggles. "Everyone ready?!"

"Roger," Murderface yelled.

"Let's go's!" Skwisgaar roared.

"Okay already. Just uh. Uh, well do it." The band was jostled by the first volley, the recoil from their cannons strong enough to send them flying back toward the wall opposite. With a creaking groan, the riderless cannons lurched forward and swiveled, each depressing one another's bar trigger. Great tufts of snow rocketed from their massive metallic bodies, plunging with great speed and velocity toward the earth.

At impact, thousands of tons of ice broke apart the land, driving people and cars and pavement and bricks up into the air and reducing them to rubble. Great, icy craters were opened up in the earth, seething wounds that dripped frosty cold and the wretched, still-dying screams of the trapped and wounded.

"Oh my God," Pickles whispered. "Well, that isn't goin' so great."

"Let it happen," Murderface replied, full of sagely wisdom in this time of great disorder and despair. "Just . . . let it happen."

"Ohhhhh man." Nathan knit his hands together as he watched the terrible carnage. "Uhhh. Hey, Toki? Toki, uh."

"Yes, Nathans?" Toki asked. Frantic pounding shook the door again behind him, but he held his position well.

"Remember, uh, how you were gonna visit that pet shop on Christmas day?" Nathan asked, very slowly. They were at a great risk if Toki left his post; if Charles saw what was happening, they would be in who knew how much trouble.

"Yes?" Toki asked sweetly as the door lunged open and a barrage of shouts came through. That ended just as Toki reared back and slammed the door again.

"Uhhh." Nathan glanced back and forth between the members of the band, in the hope that one of them would stand up and absolve him of his duties. When none did, he settled for a kindly let-down. "Surprise! You don't gotta' go there, uh, anymore. We just shot it into little pieces."

"WHAT?!" The door flew open. All that could be seen was a mess of shadows and flailing limbs.

"Do you know what you've done?!"

"THEY'RE DEAD'S. THEY'RE ALL'S DEADS!"

"You aren't even letting me speak and--"

"Watch out, we've turned around!"

"Ssssssso. Does this mean we get our gift baskets?"

*

*

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THE VERY MERRY END


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